Young Son Thrashing To The Point Of Potential Self Injury

by Zoe and Chris
(Aptos, Ca, USA)

Our 15 month old son will wake up from a nap or in the early middle of the night and go quickly from crying to wailing as if he's in pain and thrashing around. When we pick him up he starts thrashing more, hitting out, usually with his eyes closed. He'll roll over and over writhing, throwing himself about, sometimes arching and stamping both feet against the floor (while on his back) as if he is enraged.

Sometimes he gets up and walks around to a random location, drops to the floor again-sometimes banging his head against the floor-and then gets up and walks again. If we try to hand him a bottle or pacifier or anything he'll throw it back at us.

Usually we just try to keep him safe, turn on the lights, open a window to let cold air in, sometimes try to remove some of his clothes-we've tried many things. And eventually either something will work or he'll just snap out of it on his own. When he snaps out of it he sometimes just suddenly opens his eyes wide and grins when he sees both of us watching him, sometimes suddenly calms down to a whimper. It's always sudden.

The shortest episode has lasted about 5 minutes, and the longest half an hour. It started a month or two ago and he's had five or six. Only one has been from a nap. There have only ever been two other times when he's thrown anything along the lines of a thrashing temper tantrum-also recent.

We're not sure if this is relevant, but he also has enlarged brain ventricles that are being close tracked. So far he has met all his developmental milestones with flying colors, and the latest MRI showed an open aqueduct. His movements as I described them look nothing like a seizure.

Also maybe not relevant; he's a very light sleeper and seems to have almost super sonic hearing.

Dreams

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